The CDS wheel of Urban Development
3.4.4. Power, geo-politics and city mentorship: the role of key stakeholders in international city-to-city learning
Given the adoption of a phronetic research planning approach (explained in the previous chapter) and in drawing on the writing of Flyvbjerg (1998; 2001; 2004; 2012; 2015) who works in this tradition, an exposition of the pervasive nature of power in city-to-city learning processes is an important theme in this research. The works of Power (2010) and Johnson et al. (2012) have also been useful in thinking about how power manifests itself, who controls the city-to-city learning
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agenda, how decisions are made, the role of multinational agencies and donors and even the possibility of new kind of colonization – this time of the mentee by the mentor municipality.
One of the lesser explored terrains in city-to-city learning is that of the role played by supporting agencies in strategic planning processes and the extent to which these agencies inhibit, control or actually contribute towards ensuring the building of more vibrant, inclusive and robust municipal visions and strategies. In the case study, three types of support agencies have been identified: Local Government Associations from Africa, the UCLG as the program manager and the Cities Alliance, as the program funder.
Turning firstly to an examination of the respective country’s Local Government Associations it is important to understand what the international literature is suggesting about the role played by these associations and whether their effectiveness can shape the outcome of city-to-city learning initiatives. In research conducted explicitly to explore the role of Local Government Associations in increasing effectiveness of city-to-city cooperation, Buis (2009) argues that national policies that provide clear guidelines and objectives that govern municipal international cooperation have been until very recently non-existent. Using the example of South Africa, it is suggested that even where this was put in place by the Ministry for Provincial and Local Government, less than ten years after publication, the framework was “hardly known by the local governments in South Africa, let alone being used” (Buis, 2009: 193). More interesting, Buis (2009) points out that SALGA who had been consulted in development of the framework had itself never used the document in its policies.
Notwithstanding the absence of a clear national policy framework to guide the operations of Local Government Associations in relation to city-to-city learning, Buis (2009: 193) makes the point that Local Government Associations do have a “strong influence” on the agenda of city-to-city cooperation and offer a platform for exchange, learning and networking. This is an important assertion to be tested in the Malawian and Namibian contexts. Another critical observation made by Buis (2009) is that Local Government Associations themselves need to be strengthened before they can rise to the occasion of facilitating of city-to-city learning. In developing a model to depict the roles of Local Government Associations, Buis (2009: 194) concludes that most associations in the developing world are currently only able to “aspire to perform” rather than “perform the roles”
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outlined in the model. For city-to-city cooperation to have meaningful impact, Buis (2009) argues strongly for the capacity development of Local Government Associations.
Given that in the Namibian case the mentorship program was managed through ALAN, this observation made by Buis (2009) is particularly useful, and will help probe the effectiveness of ALAN in assisting to deliver the learning outcomes. This is particularly important, as a weak ALAN would imply that the UCLG as international program managers based in Barcelona would have to play a greater role in managing a process that arguably should be driven from within the continent. Again, examining the extent to which UCLG Africa asserts itself in driving the learning agenda on the continent, the time and energy invested in the mentorship, its own capacity and resources for learning and, more importantly, its ability to engage strategically and lobby the UCLG as its international parent body, makes for very interesting analysis.
It is this international agency – the UCLG, which is the overall coordinator that brings together the various stakeholders involved in the mentoring program is the second key role-player that deserves attention. It is very significant to note in this regard that the UCLG has been mindful of the need to clarify its role in learning, and hence commissioned international city learning expert Tim Campbell to develop a strategic note that will help the organization reposition itself. In reviewing the role of the UCLG in the arena of city learning, very clear recommendations emerged which will be summarized here.
The first important recommendation was that the UCLG begin to formalize what is termed “an apex role” given that it sits at the apex of a global web-work of regions, cities, associations and partners (Campbell, 2012b: 10). The suggestion is that it no longer plays a direct role in city learning, but gears itself up to provide normative guidance to cities and promotes a new order of learning. Beyond this normative role, it was also suggested that the UCLG focuses more on demand assessment and systematically taking stock of needs in cities globally. The third proposal that emanated from the strategic note is not only of documenting and cataloguing practice, but monitoring outcomes in order to provide useful feedback to city practitioners. Finally, a key recommendation that emerged was to capitalize on the UCLG’s asset as a “recognized
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intermediary” and to more actively forge alliances for strategic learning purposes (Campbell, 2012a: 12).
Whilst the strategic note was commissioned in 2012, the UCLG has not yet transitioned to play this apex role, and is still very much an active player, directing the city learning agenda in Africa.
The issue to be explored in the case study is how African role-players perceive the UCLG, and whether or not this active role serves to undermine local ownership of city learning on the continent. This is a key issue to explore, as the literature on geo-politics and power warn about the role of international agencies. In particular, the work of Power (2010: 435) which contextualizes the role of Western development agencies by exposing what is regarded as “geo-political imaginations that enframe their orthodoxies” is instructive.
Power (2010) argues that it is impossible to even make sense of current development theory and practice without making reference to the geo-politics of non-Western societies. If Power’s (2010) analysis is accepted, any hesitation or delay to transition to a higher order apex role could be viewed as an attempt to exercise power and control. Clegg (2014: 389), in writing on circuits of knowledge and power, emphasize this point, arguing that modern power “is abstract, not personalized – it flows through things and devices”, suggesting that in the case study, continued direct involvement in city learning could be interpreted as a visible manifestation of modern power relations.
As outlined in the Conceptual Framework, the use of Flyvbjerg’s (2004) Foucauldian-based analysis of power relations helps illuminate an understanding of how power is exercised and distributed. In going back to Foucault (1980: 131-132), even “the production of knowledge by the more powerful about the less privileged and marginalized” is regarded as an expression of power relations. This is an important observation, as the UCLG is responsible for the production of knowledge on city learning in Africa, whilst the UCLG Africa regional network, it is argued, does not necessarily play an active role in knowledge production.
Accepting this notion of knowledge production as an expression of power relations, Johnson et al.
(2012) observe that the process of knowledge production could manifest in two ways. It could be platforms for managerial dominance and control on the one hand or it could manifest as spaces for
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exciting change on the other hand. It will be important therefore to test the extent to which the UCLG - as a powerful agency headquartered in the global North – either exerts its own impositions on the local mentorship actors or creates new spaces for deliberation where local actors can be seen as taking ownership of their planning processes. Again, given the paradigm within which the research is located, understanding the political geography of power relations at work here, with a view to transform future relationships and improve planning practice, is critical.
The third support actor is the Cities Alliance, which has funded the UCLG mentorship program both in Malawi and in Namibia. Whilst their role has not been highly visible as it has been predominantly responsible only for program funding, it is important to analyze the role played by the funder in order to understand how this agency shapes the direction and outcomes of the strategic planning process. Many critical scholars in the field of international development view global governance as a set of practices in which the interests of international capital gets inserted into local sites. This, it is argued, is achieved through mechanisms that appear to be somewhat neutral and technical in nature, but are in fact political and represent vested interests (Rai, 2004;
Murphy, 2008). These are important observations in the literature that call for greater scrutiny of the intentions and actions of actors such as global funding agencies. The southern African case study presents a unique opportunity to assess the extent to which the Cities Alliance, as a global funder, represents a particular interest, and how local actors perceive their involvement.
More importantly, in order to understand the pervasiveness of the relations of power, the case study includes an in-depth interview with a member of the Cities Alliance Secretariat who is asked to reflect on the learning process and what it means for an international funding agency. From the critical literature in international development, it is clear that many funders, donors and international agencies are less sympathetic to the notion that local interests may not align with their own. Walters (2004: 36) captures this view most eloquently, when he insists that the
“governance discourse will not concede that its ‘others’ may have interests that are fundamentally incompatible or antagonistic to the present order of power, that their ‘exclusion’ is a structural effect rather than a remediable anomaly, or that inclusion would imply a fundamental reordering of this system”. Whilst Walters (2004) makes particular reference to the urban poor in governance
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discourse, his critical commentary may equally apply to understand how international agencies engage with local actors in urban strategic planning practices in southern Africa.
This line of argument is pursued by Hout (2012) who studies the role of donor agencies in the political economy of international governance. Hout (2012: 406) makes a compelling case when he suggests that many donor agencies have tended to focus their programs on relatively technical issues, and were “preoccupied with the sequencing of reforms, rather than with the concrete impacts that such reforms were having on power relations in the countries concerned”. In an analysis of why this is so, Hout (2012) posits that the actual way in which donor agencies function in relation to the environment in which they work, and their own operational features limit their ability to appreciate the local political contexts. More importantly, he argues that the conceptualization of what proper development policy entails is often inadequate. Hout (2012:
407)) suggests that development is very narrowly focused on improving people’s livelihoods and
“doing development”, which involves the successful implementation of programs and projects.
Their greatest miscalculation, according to Hout (2012), is that whilst they are concerned about the political context that they function in, they do not concern themselves with politics in their respective partner countries. What does this mean for agency staff in the field? Hout’s (2012: 418) analysis in this regard is extremely instructive:
For staff, ‘doing development’ implies managing and implementing programs and projects, and disbursing funds to partner organizations – predominantly governments but also to others – in order to obtain results. The depoliticized understanding of development is instrumental for development professionals, as this helps them focus on the key elements of their work, without being ‘distracted’ by the potential conflicts of interest among their partners and the power implications of development processes.
Perhaps the most concerning trend identified by Hout (2012) is that it is very unlikely that the current conceptualization of development will give way to a new approach that allows for a more robust engagement with politics and power relations. This southern African case study therefore allows for the testing of this profound theoretical assertion, either confirming that international agencies are still incorrectly focusing their efforts or suggesting that indeed bold new approaches are being chartered, challenging contemporary international development literature.
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